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Assange Accuses U.S. of a ‘Witch Hunt’

LONDON — Beyond the reach of police officers waiting to arrest him and with hundreds of supporters looking on, Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, took to the balcony of Ecuador’s embassy here on Sunday to condemn the United States government and cast himself as one of the world’s most persecuted whistle-blowers.

Since June, Mr. Assange has been confined to the embassy, a small office in a red-brick apartment block where he fled and was granted asylum from British efforts to extradite him to Sweden. He is wanted for questioning on accusations of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion brought by two women in Stockholm in 2010, allegations he has denied.

On Sunday, with his supporters shouting encouragement, Mr. Assange did not directly mention those allegations or the women who brought them. One supporter who spoke before him, a former British diplomat, Craig Murray, asserted that Mr. Assange had been “fitted up with criminal offenses” as a pretext to prosecute him in the United States for leaking classified government documents.

It was a theme Mr. Assange continued. “I ask President Obama to do the right thing,” he said, reading from a statement as he stood on the balcony wearing a crisp blue shirt and red tie, his white hair cut short. “The United States must renounce its witch hunt against WikiLeaks. The United States must dissolve its F.B.I. investigation,” a reference to persistent reports that such an investigation is taking place. “The United States must vow that it will not seek to prosecute our staff or our supporters.”

Mr. Assange’s address, which was met with applause and cheers from a crowd that filled the broad streets nearby, was the latest turn in a diplomatic fracas that has captivated London. As he spoke, dozens of Metropolitan Police officers stood by, stony-faced, guarding every entrance and exit of the embassy.

In the embassy, which is legally Ecuadorean territory, Mr. Assange is safe. But should he step foot into the street to begin the journey to a new life in South America, he will be on British territory and subject to arrest.

Photo

Julian Assange spoke from a balcony at the Ecuadorean embassy in London on Sunday.Credit
Facundo Arrizabalaga/European Pressphoto Agency

With neither side willing to back down, and a raid on the embassy deemed unlikely in the face of international law, the diplomatic impasse shows no signs of a quick conclusion.

In granting him asylum on Thursday, President Rafael Correa of Ecuador presented his move as a pre-emptive action against American plans to seek Mr. Assange’s extradition and put him on trial in the United States on espionage charges for his role in publishing American military and diplomatic documents. American officials have not publicly disclosed any such plans.

Mr. Assange, 41, an Australian-born hacker who has been both hailed as a champion of free speech and denounced as a danger to public safety, burst onto the scene in 2010 when WikiLeaks posted secret documents on the Iraq war, classified Pentagon documents on the Afghan conflict and hundreds of thousands of classified messages from the United States State Department.

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On Sunday, Mr. Assange used his 10-minute speech to criticize the recent prosecutions of those suspected of leaking classified materials.

Specifically, he hailed Pfc. Bradley E. Manning, an Army intelligence analyst accused of passing archives of classified documents to WikiLeaks. He called Private Manning a “hero” and “one of the world’s foremost political prisoners.” Private Manning faces a court-martial, and a potential life sentence, for what prosecutors have said was his role in transferring the documents to WikiLeaks, which shared them with several news organizations, including The New York Times.

“As WikiLeaks stands under threat,” Mr. Assange said, “so does the freedom of expression and the health of all our societies.”

He spoke ominously of a “dangerous and oppressive world in which journalists fall silent under the fear of prosecution, and citizens must whisper in the dark.”

A version of this article appears in print on August 20, 2012, on Page A7 of the New York edition with the headline: Assange Accuses U.S. of a ‘Witch Hunt’ Against WikiLeaks. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe